Page 79 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
“Gold star.” He turns to the security guy, whom I’ll now call Joe, for G.I. Joe. “You’re better acquainted with this part of the forest. Is there a path in this region your guy would be more likely to take? One that’s less overgrown?”
Joe points.
“Lead on,” Dalton says.
Joe takes us back the way he and his partner had come. He’s heading west when Dalton slows and squints off to the side. “What about that one?”
Joe looks at the trail to our right and shrugs. Doesn’t say anything, just shrugs, but he stops walking, which we presume means he’s fine following that one … which happens to head in the direction of the body.
We continue down that trail. Dalton plays it up more than I would have—starting down a “wrong” trail only to declare it unlikely and circle back. He really doesn’t want them to know we’d already found the body. He doesn’t even want them later wondering whether we’d stumbled on it a little too easily. I’m not sure that much subterfuge is required, but I’ll trust him. He pulls off the performance better than I would have, and he’s so good at it that Joe relaxes and even starts offering suggestions.
What’s that over there? A footprint?
Hoofprint, probably moose, see the hoof points?
Is that another trail?
Game trail, from animals, but we should make a note of it for later, in case your guy went that way.
When we near the spot, it’s Joe who suggests splitting off onto the proper fork, saying, “That one looks good.”
We get about fifty feet along it when Storm sniffs the air. Dalton makes a show of that, too.
“What is it, girl?” he says. “Do you smell something?”
I put my hand over my nose and mouth. “You don’t?”
I can’t smell a thing—the breeze comes from the wrong direction—but Joe snaps to attention and inhales deeply.
“Smell what?” he says.
“Some predator’s eyes were bigger than its stomach,” Dalton says. “It cached its leftovers nearby.”
“You think it could be Sa—our guy?”
“What?” Dalton frowns over at him. “Oh. Nah. Didn’t mean to spook you. It’s just some dead critter bits. Maybe a moose haunch.” He peers into the forest as we walk. “Should probably check it out, though.”
“You can do the honors,” I say. “I’ve stumbled over enough carcasses out here.” I look at Joe. “The last one was a dead caribou that started moving. Turned out to have a weasel inside of it.”
“Stay here with the pup,” Dalton says. Then to Joe: “Is your stomach up to this?”
Joe straightens. “Yes, sir.”
The two men head for the spot where we know Sandy lies dead. I count to five. Right on cue, Dalton says, “Fuck.”
“Holy shit,” Joe says. “What the hell happened to him?”
“Guys?” I make my own show of frantically fighting through the undergrowth to get to them. “What’s wrong? What did you—?”
I clap my hand to my mouth as I see the body. “Oh!”
“That your guy?” Dalton says. “Might be hard to identify, with him being facedown.”
“No, it’s our guy,” Joe says.
“Well, then, I’m sorry to say we found him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
